Carving on old fashioned skis

I am probably going to embarrass myself here. I am the proud owner of a pair of Volkl skis, the model type escapes me here as they are still in the loft at the moment and will come out at Christmas (though P11 seems to ring a bell). I have had these skis for about 8 years and never thought about updating them, partly because I am very fond of them and partly because we've had to take some years out due to having children. The main thing is, they are NOT carving skis because when I bought them, carving skis seemed to be a relatively new concept and were very expensive. My skis have a row of cuts in the metal on one side to allow more flex and this makes them very twitchy if I wear the skis with the cuts on the inside edges (great fun however). After a few years of making crap turns and skidding, I have finally started to master the art of "carving" my turns with these skis by edging the upper ski, and it feels good!

My question is, is it possible to perfect my carving skills with this type of ski, or am I going to get to the stage where my skills are limited by my ski type? I don't think I am ready to invest in a pair of carvers just yet and am a little worried that if I do I will have to learn to ski all over again!

Does anyone have any comments on this? Sorry for the long post ... :oops:

Well I, like many others who started skiing last century... :shock: ...learnt to carve on skinny skis and IMO that gave me very solid fundamental technique for edging and pressuring the ski properly. If you don't get it right on skinny skis they just won't carve - simple really!

You can put a "carver" on its side and round it goes with a minimum of technique but to really make the ski work you've still got to get those basics of edging and pressure right. I think many skiers on "carvers" never get the compression and acceleration out of the turn that comes from carving it right - the ski turns and that's all they want.

If you like, the "intermediate plateau" used to be "pre-carving" and now it's just after carving... if that makes any sense whatsoever :P

But it's important to differentiate between specific "carvers" - that can be quite soft and are really aimed at allowing lower intermediate skiers to carve - and between shaped skis generally.

Almost all modern skis are "shaped" with a pronounced side-cut but there is huge variation in stiffness and width under foot.

Personally I find softer "carvers" far too floppy and generally choose a fairly "stiff" ski - with the much shorter length that comes with wider, shaped skis. Originally, "carvers" were very narrow at the waist which made them pretty useless in powder, but this has changed in the past couple of years.

So to answer your question - I think you'll enjoy modern skis immensely as they are certainly easier to ski but, like me, you may find you're more comfortable / have more fun on a stiffer ski. So think "Freeride" or "All Mountain" ski rather than "Carver".

But the best plan of all is to find a friendly hire shop, talk to the techies and take a completely different pair of skis out each day to find what you like!

Oh, and take an instructor for an hour or two so he can tune your technique to make the most of modern skis.

Powderhound

If you really want to carve get some race skis and a professional boot fit. There is simply no comparison to skis made for the rec market. Foam core skis can be built shaped to carve but most simply don't have the torsional rigidity in the tips and tails to hold a carve after a certain point. If you can find one a notch softer/shorter than a racer would use, all the better - women's skis, kids skis if you weigh 135 or less. You can get last year's skis for half price at raceskis.com. If you're serious about it you need the right tools for the job. You won't regret the money spent.

Thank you Powderhound and Midfielder for your informative replies. I probably commited a minor sin by tarring all modern skis with the same brush (i.e. calling them all carvers when they're not). I agree that I would be happier with a modern, stiffer ski and hate the idea of "cheating" by buying a carver that's designed for lower intermediates to make the least amount of effort. I really need to look at a few and get some good advice in resort when we get to Alpe d'Huez a week on Saturday. :shock:

Here's my two pennies worth

I only started skiing because the new skis came out, so never carved on the old skis. Then again very few people ever did. Carving is a product of the skis sidecut, inclination, decambering (flex) and edge pressure. No matter how good the skier, if there ain't much sidecut, there ain't much carving (unless your talking 4 turns to the mile). Anatomy and boot out, limit a skiier ability to inclinate the skis enough to make a reasonable carved turn on older 25+m sidecut skis. The greatest pressure on the front of the ski cannot change these basic limitations of geometry.

I'm talking about real carving, a high G turn, leaving two lines in the snow, no skidding (even through 180 of turn). A lot of people talk about carving on older skis, but I never saw it. I was on an alpine snowboard. It had a carvable sidecut and could really carve.
Aside from a few racers on slalom skis, I didn't see any one really carving until the new ski came out (and my local hill is ski race central).

If you have really good technique, you may be able to carve (really carve) with a 21m radius (still quite big turns). An all round carvable ski will be in the 15m to 17m radius range. To really rip up the corderoy, 12m to 14m radius will give you a good work out.

These skis all come in mid fat models (74/76mm waist) which will allow you to ski softer snow as well and a variety of flexes.

I know there are many people out there who thought they were carving on those old skis, but I'm just saying what I saw.

Trencher